The present invention relates to computer generated visualization of three-dimensional (“3D”) models and, more particularly, but not exclusively to communicating from a server, and visualizing on a remote terminal, a high-fidelity, 3D-model of a large-scale urban environment.
A high-fidelity 3D-model of a large-scale urban environment involves huge amounts of data. It is therefore advantageous to store the model in a server and communicate to a user-terminal only part of data that is needed to render a user selected view, rather than to pre-store the entire model at each terminal.
Processing the high-fidelity 3D-model of a large-scale urban environment to create the user selected view consumes a substantial amount of the processing power. It is therefore advantageous to process the selected view at each terminal, rather than at the server.
It is therefore advantageous to store the 3D-model in a network sever, to communicate the required part of the 3D-model to the terminal, and to render it on the terminal display.
However, communicating the required part of the 3D-model from the server to the terminal, even through a broadband communication channel may take a long time. This creates long delays until the user can see the selected view on his/her terminal.
There is thus a widely recognized need for, and it would be highly advantageous to have, a client-server 3D visualization system devoid of the above limitations.